


helping hands make amends (leviathan)

by Outis_of_the_Cave



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Dissection, Hand Jobs, M/M, Madness, Medical School, Oral Sex, Period Typical Attitudes, Whole lot of unwholesome behavior, a handjob in two parts, monster dong, questionable medical practices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-01-05 11:41:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21207947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outis_of_the_Cave/pseuds/Outis_of_the_Cave
Summary: Stephen Stanley takes matters into his own hands.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, – Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. _

_ … _

_ Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! _

_ Herman Melville. Moby Dick _

***

They had invited him to the wardroom, and once again, Doctor Stephen Stanley, the surgeon of  _ Erebus _ , had declined. He took his meals alone; they knew that. He flipped another page and sighed, his exasperation stirring the vaporous tendrils rising from the cup of warm tea on his lap. Warmth, he felt it here, sequestered in his cabin where no porthole granted an unwelcome view of the frigid bleakness and desolation without; tucked under the covers and comforted by layers of cotton and flannel shirts. The skylight was smothered by snow, of course; shadows danced across a verglas veneer in accompaniment to thudding footfalls, but the whale oil lamp he had set on his desk was burning away with a sibilant hiss, diffusing a clear light throughout his insulated corner of the world, and he was enwrapped in a sullen contentment, feeling like a stuffed walrus in a gentleman’s homely study. He sighed once more, adjusting the raised pillows propping his body up, and stretched his legs, pressing against the wood at the end of his coffin bed. A steam engine, lead pipes filled with water heating the decks, preserved foodstuffs, Fraser’s patent stove, a retractable propeller, stalwart hulls reinforced with metal sheeting, and they were unable to add a few inches to the end of the officers’ cots. Lord in Heaven, what a farce! Was the whole ship constructed for Lilliputians? Perhaps he’d ask that old man Bridgens to sling a hammock in here, but that would mean running the risk of privately admitting he had once misattributed a Horatian verse to Ovid while in the presence of the steward who was busy serving all the officers in the wardroom (and the old bastard had the audacity to correct him in front of everyone! And Vesconte had even guffawed! This, in no small part, was a factor in his self-imposed exile from that part of the ship), and he’d be damned before conceding his prior ignorance to a doddering, boy-loving, grey-whiskered lintel brush. 

Stanley was so beside himself in indignation that he lost his place midpage. Cursing under his breath, he started over again, silently mouthing the words as he went. It was a queer thing, this book, no less queer than a man-eating bear. He didn’t envy those on watch, and who was the officer on deck anyway? Vesconte or Fitzjames? And had the lieutenant informed his superior and friend of the good doctor’s  _ faux pas _ in the wardroom? His scowl deepened, not that he was aware of doing so in the first place; long lines etched around his stingy lips told of tempered woe and an ingrained weariness. Damn Horace, damn Ovid, and damn Bridgens—a  _ petty _ officer fancying himself an Oxford man...bah! And damn whatever rubbish this book was supposed to be. He had lost his place again. It was the most obfuscating work of literature he had ever seen; that yammering Scot  Fergusson made more sense than what he now held between his white, abominably clean hands. Why on earth was he reading this? His old medical textbooks, dusty tomes written in latin and greek, were children’s primers compared to this dreck.

He nearly knocked his tea off balance when the rattle of the cabin door sliding open violated the sanctity of his domain, snapping his tenuous thread of concentration. Lose not a minute! they say in the service, and Stanley did not waste a second in slamming the book shut, grabbing the upset cup of tea and saucer, saving their fragile porcelain bodies from a calamitous fall to the hardwood floor, and twisting his body, turning to the door, barking, “What is it?!” All of this was accomplished within a second —a stunning series of maneuvers that would’ve made the crotchety Cochrane proud. But it was no xebec that he was confronted by, and indeed, he would’ve rather been confronted by a boatload of angry Spaniards than by the disarrayed visage of Henry Foster Collins, second master of the  _ Erebus _ . The unwelcome guest’s heaving body dwarfed the doorway, blocking the view of the corridor outside, and his shadow across Stanley, obscuring the title of his book and robbing him of the delightful illusion of coziness, of safety. The good doctor was penned in. He could try and run out, but he knew he’d just bounce against Collins’s belly, as if it were made of rubber, and plop back down in bed. Ragged breathing disturbed the air: Collins’ eyes were wide open, twin glistening pools of ink threatening to dribble down his blanched cheeks, watering the unruly black growth running amok all over his neck, chin, and all over the sides, framing his face—a haunting portrait of woe and despair. His tufty brows were narrowed; his bloodless lips slightly parted, for a silent plea was being phrased, one that Stanley hated, because he knew what it was, and there was no way he could help.

Not when he couldn’t help himself.

Stanley feigned coolness by gulping down his tea and permitting an affected yawn; he stretched while doing so and quite unconsciously banged his feet against his cot, startling Collins, his bristles standing in alarm. Stanley held on to cup and saucer; now was the time to call in Bridgens and have him take his dishes out, creating an opening that would permit his escape, or obligate Collins’s departure. But Collins, for all his faults, wasn’t around to hear Stanley’s poetic blunder, and Bridgens might inform him of it if they were all to be in the room together. No, Stanley would have to take matters into his own hands. Stanley offered his utensils to Collins. “Would you be so kind as to deposit these on my desk, Mr. Collins?”

Collins made a noncommittal grunt and accepted the proffered instruments, and did as he was told. But he didn’t fulfill Stanley’s most ardent wish: that of his hurriedly absenting himself. Collins hovered over Stanley, his lips working again, the labyrinthine lungs within his mighty chest working like a billows. 

The narrative of Stanley’s book was proving to be much more alluring than previously thought. He picked up the sizable volume and returned to his proper place. “Well, what is it?” he asked. His eyes never left the page. 

“I can’t sleep,” Collins said gruffly, and, after a moment’s pause, added, “Goodsir is over on  _ Terror _ .”

“Hmm...of course he is. Our young Fletcher is often absent in the evenings, isn't he?” Stanley pursed his lips. “I feel that a dose of laudanum is in order.” 

“No.” Collins shook his head, his mane rustling vehemently. “No more. The stuff makes me costive.”

“But that’s the least of your problems, isn’t it?” Stanley harrumphed and turned a page. 

“Yes, its...I’ve others...more pressing ones.” Collins crouched low, his paws gripping the edge of the cot, knuckles white between the fur. “I’ve been having bad thoughts, Mr. Stanley. Bad. I think about the ship, and the men in it—all of us going down. I dreamt about the ice opening up, Mr. Stanley, but there are no leads, except for the one below us. We all fall down, and there’s no telling whether we land or not, because its so dark, Mr. Stanley, so, so dark and we can’t tell where we are, but we are not alone. Silence’s father is there, and Sir John keeps us company, but he’s none too pleased because the beast’s swimming around us…”

“Damn your eyes, Henry!” Stanley exclaimed. “You must not give voice to such odious things.”

"I'm sorry," Collins said, his voice wavering, his red-rimmed eyes glancing down in shame, as though he had been reduced to being a boy on the verge of tears. "I don't want to be this way, but I can't help it. My  _ nerves _ , doctor — they are in an incredible state of disarray." 

Stanley checked himself. It wouldn't do to have Collins crying; his tears would get the pages all wet in this proximity. He had to get him out of here, but without getting up himself, of course. 

"Report to the sick bay, Mr. Collins," Stanley said cooly, "and I will be with you in a short while. There we will endeavor, once again, to dispel these morbid fancies." 

"Yes, doctor," Collins said in a resigned monotone. He rose to his feet and headed for the door.

Stanley watched the second master go, a curious fascination taking hold of him. What was it about this man that vexed him so? The surgeon's keen blue eyes flickered over his patient's considerable frame. He was wearing that loose white sweater again, the one with the slack neck that hung in creased folds about his sinuous neck, and the faded blue diving helmet stitched on the side. His back was facing him, and Stanley saw how his broad shoulder-blades stood out against the fabric, how his torso protested against the straining skeins of wool. There was no denying that Henry Foster Collins was a  _ thick  _ man, and in a manner quite different from the late Sir John's smug corpulence. If Franklin were a latter day incarnation of, say, Julius Caesar, then Collins was the maritime embodiment of Maximinus Thrax. Collins's corpus reflected a certain power which manifested itself in the grandiosity of its physical attributes; and Stanley wondered if this anatomical phenomena went on below his waterline, so to speak. In spite of their hushed whispers, Stanley could not resist listening in on his patients' clandestine conversations, and if the scuttlebutt were true, then Mr. Collins was quite the specimen...

July 1845,  _ Erebus  _ and  _ Terror  _ weigh anchor at the Whale Fish Islands, in Disko Bay, off the western coast of Greenland. Here, on the first rung to greatness, the very precipice of the civilized world where they despatched their final words, they transferred provisions from the supply ships, conducted magnetic observations, and mingled with the indigenous people.  _ Doctor _ Stanley referred to them as Esquimaux, Commander Fitzjames praised them for being ‘hardy fellows’, and a divine dunce from  _ Terror  _ called them the ‘Children of Eden’ —but it was his precocious assistant  _ surgeon _ , Harry Goodsir, who identified them as the  _ Kalaallit _ , an  _ Inuk _ people who lived on the western part of the landmass. Apparently, the Esquimaux, as Stanley adamantly maintained them to be, who lived in the north and east spoke different languages, and it was Goodsir’s aim to rebuild the ruins of Babel by putting together an  _ Inuk  _ dictionary. Fairchild (was that the Erebite lieutenant's name? He couldn’t quite remember…) was also interested, and the two of them went off to go larking with the natives. 

Fitzjames also had an interest in local fare. After a kayak trip ended with an invigorating plunge, Fitzjames thought he’d repay the kayak’s owner by showing off an invention of his own. Fitzjames had done much travelling throughout the exotic East, as he was very fond of pointing out to anyone within earshot, and one such peculiarity he encountered were the steam baths he had encountered in Syria. Appropriating the talents of Misters Honey and Weekes, a wooden shack was constructed and a boiling pot of water taken from Wall’s galley was placed in the middle. Mattaaq, whose name meant ‘whale-meat’ according to Goodsir, was to be the guest of honor. It was Mattaaq’s kayak Fitzjames had borrowed, and duly capsized, and the genial commander sought to show his thanks. Also invited were Goodsir, Vesconte, Fairbody, Gore, Franklin, and Crozier from  _ Terror _ (much to Stanley’s annoyance; why wasn’t he himself invited?) Franklin had to decline due to health reasons; the vaporous heat, he worried, would make him swoon in front of all the men. Crozier refused straight out of hand, without explanation. And so, perhaps to soothe the sting of rejection, Fitzjames invited Collins to join them. And thus, man is most often complacent in his own demise. Everyone undressed and went on in; the pot was already boiling over, and soon they were all enveloped in undulating tendrils of steam. It was here that the following scene purportedly took place:

“Where’s Mr. Collins?” Fitzjames had asked. “He said he’d be here.”

“Busy, most like,” Gore replied. “He’s been supervising the transfer of supplies from  _ Blazer _ .” 

“Either that or rearranging the casks in the hold,” joined Vesconte. “We’re still making room for everything.”

“But I expressly ordered Mr. Des Voeux to handle everything during our bath,” Fitzjames complained. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mattaaq, this isn’t like one of my men to be tardy. Apologize to our guest for me, Doctor Goodsir.”

Before Goodsir could translate, the very ground beneath their feet began to quake, glowing coals rolled out from underneath the pot, sending up bright sparks that stung their fleeing ankles, and the walls shook around them. “I’m here!” a loud voice boomed from outside, causing the flimsy door to rattle on its hinges. “Just a moment!” The door swung open, and the second master’s naked body was silhouetted against the blinding light, and everyone gasped in unison. 

“Good God,” Goodsir said in hushed awe, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The rest were silent.

Collins, not in the least impeded by his audience’s stunned reaction, lumbered over to an open seat between Goodsir and Mattaaq. “Never thought I’d be this warm so far up north,” he said, and playfully elbowed Goodsir in the ribs. The surgeon was unresponsive. The only sound was the steady gurgling of boiling water intersped by a few awkward coughs. Gore appraised Collins obliquely, his eyes simmering with envy. Everyone else took an interest in their knees or feet, but some invisible force as ethereal as the swirling steam around them, an obscene magnetism, would drag their contrary gazes to Collins. Even in the low visibility of the steam room, they could well make out the breathtaking outline. (Stanley imagined it must've been like half-seeing a sculpted grotesque perched on the steeple of a papist cathedral during a fog-filled morning.) Collins wasted no time in proving himself to be more of a 'Brat from Eden' than the duskier fellow beside him. Like many men who never had the opportunity to refine their manners in the drawing room, Collins made the amateur mistake of trying to banish everyone's collective unease through ceaseless chatter. He sincerely possessed not the faintest idea that it was actually  _ he  _ who was the source of distress. 

"I know I can't speak for everyone," he loudly announced, "but all these preparations have worn me to the bone." Collins turned to Mattaaq, who was trying to scoot away from the bigger man. "Did you hear that? I'm tired." When Mattaaq didn't answer, Collins said more loudly, "I...am...tie-er-ed, do you comprehend?" Mattaaq shook his head and continued sliding away until he bumped against the far wall, finding himself trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Collins, realizing that the  _ Inuk  _ probably didn't know too much english, gave him a knowing smile. Collins would have to communicate through other means. The Erebite mimed his exhaustion —leaning far back against the wall, emitting a bass yawn that caused the planks beneath everyone's backsides to vibrate, and tiredly spreading his legs like beat dog. These histrionics elicited another round of gasps from his captive audience. Fairhead lightly placed the tips of his fingers against his temples and rested his elbows on his knees, swaying uneasily. Gore coughed and looked away. Goodsir, ever the anatomist, appraised the sight objectively, much like how he would've examined a layer of tissue from the phylum  _ mollusca  _ under a microscope. Vesconte and Fitzjames huddled close together. 

"If my hair was already grey, then it's going to turn bloody white," said Vesconte. 

"This can't be real, Dundy," reassured Fitzjames, "this cannot be real."

“You will be pleased to know, sir,” Collins spoke to Fitzjames, “that our hold is absolutely stuffed with provisions, I went ahead and crammed everything in there. The casks, I assure you, are stacked.” Collins laughed, “Felt like I was a lord’s valet stacking chairs after a fancy ball, that’s what I was, yes.” Collins started wildly gesticulating in excitement, his arms, along with everything else,  _ everything _ , were rising and falling and flapping and swinging to and fro. Goodsir and Mattaaq yelped and nearly fell out of there seats.

“Thank you for your report, Mr. Collins,” Fitzjames said stiffly. “I will return to  _ Erebus  _ and assess the situation. Thank you again for the kayak, Mr. Mattaaq. I will have to stop by and call when we come again on the return leg of our journey.” He abruptly rose and practically fled the room, parting the swirling clouds of steam before him. Vescone wore a poignant expression of forlorn abandonment. 

At last, Mattaq refused to endure the ordeal any longer. While the steam still converged over the commander’s wake, the cornered man rose to his feet, pointed at Collins, and shouted, “ _ Kraken _ !” Before anyone could act, Mattaq was gone. Collins ceased his interminable prattle, staring at the vacant spot where the  _ Inuk _ had been. 

“An interesting choice of vocabulary,” Goodsir observed nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened. “An old Norse word,  _ kraken _ . The  _ Kalaallit _ must’ve heard it from the old Norse settlers who came here to hunt walruses for ivory, and the word was orally transmitted from one generation to the next. Quite fascinating, really.”

“Aye, that’s a sea monster...the kraken,” said Fairman. 

“But why did he call me that?” asked a very befuddled Collins, his face screwed up in an earnest display of confusion. “Lord knows I’m no beast!”

Vesconte slapped his knee in frustration, filling the room with a wet  _ smack _ . “Are we all going to ignore the elephant in the room or are we going to point out that Collins has a freakishly large —”

“Beard!” Goodsir ejaculated before matters could get out of hand.

“It’s not great, but it’s not terrible.” Gore sniffed. “It’s really not  _ that  _ big.”

“I’d like to see you grow a bigger one, Mr. Gore,” Collins said, relieved that the conversation had gone somewhere else. “My mother told me I came out with a full head of hair. Said I got it from my father.”

“That poor woman…” 

“Pardon?”

“Your parents should be proud, Mr. Collins.”

“Thank you. They are.”

“Perhaps you should trim your beard,” Fairyman said very tactfully, “Sir John would be scandalized to see someone hairier than Neptune frequenting the deck.”

“But Mr. Fairbottom...my beard is trimmed!”

Jaws hit the floor; Vesconte uttered a blasphemy. 

“But that’s...impossible,” Goodsir stammered, “it’s not at full length?”

“Goodness gracious, of course not,” Collins’s laugh came from deep within his chest. “It’s quite tame right now.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph...” Vesconte swore under his breath, then louder, for everyone to hear, “Henry Foster Collins, RN, I do not exaggerate when I proclaim you the biggest man in the service.”

Fairperson arose on unsound legs and almost foundered, the others in the room quickly reaching out to steady him; he brushed them off and staggered to the door, wobbling like a newborn calf, and then, on the verge of freedom, he collapsed, falling face first. He hit the floor with a dull thud.

“Don’t worry everyone,” said Goodsir, stooping beside the fallen man, “it’s just the heat.”

This aforementioned exchange was compiled from various hearsay gathered in the forecastle. What exactly happened, however, Stanley knew he would never know for sure, and accepted it. But subsequent events proved to be more concrete. In the days following this lurid revelation, the Esquimaux gave Collins a wide berth. The old ladies laughed at him, showing off their toothless gums and holding their hands up, wrinkly palms open, measuring some invisible object. Collins blushed and ignored them; but harder to shrug off were the young maidens who dropped whatever they were doing and screamed whenever he drew near, running for their lives, fleeing his baleful shadow. If Sir John had been worried about certain members of his crew enjoying ‘improper’ relations with the locals, then he had no need to worry about poor Mr. Collins. The second master, still baffled as to what was happening around him, retreated to  _ Erebus _ and devoted himself wholeheartedly to his duties.

But it was John Morfin who received a very special duty, one specifically assigned to him by Commander Fitzjames. The Dong Shack — as it was already being called, always in whispers so grave that Golgotha could’ve easily been carried on the same breath —was to be dismantled. Viable timber, Fitzjames explained, was a rare resource indeed in frozen climes, and every scrap of wood would have to be recycled over and over again. Although Goodsir’s  _ Kalaallit  _ would’ve liked to have the building for themselves (in reality, they hardly dared to approach the place), Weekes was in greater need of the material. And so it fell upon Morfin to disassemble the structure and send every piece back to  _ Erebus _ . Morfin did so without complaint, and in a timely fashion that brought great satisfaction to his superiors. But all was not well belowdecks. Weekes tallied the planks and beams and discovered that a prominent board was missing. 

“Well, what’s this then?’ Weekes demanded. “Are you holding out on me? You give my board to a lady, eh? You rakehell!” 

“No, that’s not it at all!” Morfin cried. “I forgot, ‘pon my soul, I forgot about the board. I’ve got a poor memory, you know. The board was left ashore, methinks, and a —a seal snatched it away while I smoked my pipe. Yes. That’s what happened.”

Weekes grumbled and stomped his feet. “Then get another board from  _ Barretto Junior _ and get on it quick, or else you’ll be seeing the boatswain’s rattan stick.”

“I’ll oblige, mister, gladly.”

It was only in the safety of the for’ard quarters, among his fellow able bodies, through mouthfuls of salt pork and grog, that he sang a very different tune:

Hear my VOICE lads and I'll tell you what I saw at the DISMAL SHACK on yonder shore I took it all apart until nothing but its BASE CONSTITUENTS remained and I kept all the NAILS and put 'em in an important little pouch and gave every one back to Misters WEEKES and HONEY because I'm not like the man who went to tuh-hee-tee with COOK on account of me being a CHRISTIAN man Yes sir that's the truth But what I did not take back even though I knew the gentlemen carpenters would be counting everything like misers counting shillings was SCANDALOUS as they say in the papers Day-voh teaches us to read So I prise this board free and what do I see but the stained impressions of a gentleman’s big ol’ COCK and BALLS. Oh Lord I says to myself its just like the Shroud of Turin except I’m staring at Christ’s BOLLOCKS and that's not something you want to show off at DIVINE SERVICE no sir I tried rubbing the saucy stains off with my shirtsleeve but they wouldn’t go away just like the marks a convict makes on the wall of his cell before he’s taken away to the GALLOWS Nothing could scrub them off No sir I rubbed the board against the SHALE and I dunked the board in the WATER but the image of THICK thighs and goolies and p— would not go away I tried trading it with Mutag for some local scrimshaw but he wouldn’t have it KRAKEN he said and I agreed The balls made deep indentations in the wood that I ran my thumb along feeling the RISE and FALL and the p— was as long and wide as a big BELAYING PIN I swear the end of it went over the side No c— in the world is wide enough to receive this man I say and woe to the — who fancies a game of BACKGAMMON because this man carries a real MARLINSPIKE A f— arse sp— he is SIR JOHN must not lay his pious eyes on this I says so I COMMITTED the board to the deep where it’ll only bother fishies and mermaids and I’ll be d— if Goodsir fishes it up in a net and says it belonged to NEPTUNE’s throne — me I never want to see that b— wood again No sir and amen to all TRUE and HONEST fellows Let this be the end of it.

It was an interesting monologue, if not exactly Shakespearean, and the spirited words rang between Stanley's ears as he watched Collins's retreating bulk. Can such things be? he wondered, and suddenly, perversely, a thought, no, a  _ course of action  _ took shape… 

Before the gross pestilence and gratuitous bloodletting of China banished what few vestigial illusions he held regarding humanity, Stephen Stanley had possessed a healthy penchant for mischief. All raw bones hastily bundled up in a hand-me-down frock, he was dropped off in grey Edinburgh, a half-hearted offering to Hippocrates. Edinburgh. Ed-in-burgh. Dreary Edinburgh, perpetually drenched, its desultory inhabitants passing along perspiring streets. The rain lifted; his heart did not. Deep within a coat pocket, crammed between a famished purse and a dull penknife, was a letter recommending him to Willliam Fergusson, who was then a big fellow at the College of Surgeons. Anatomy and surgery were old Fergy's specialties, and it was Stanley's hope to learn about the latter. Stanley the Elder—a stern disciplinarian who had served as a provost under Wellington; and who prosecuted his duties as a father with the same professional enthusiasm he had shown in his youthful occupation—got tired of seeing his flesh and blood lazing about the parlour and so delivered his firstborn an ultimatum: either his son would leave the house and go pursue studies in something worthwhile like medicine or law, or else his hard but loving father would send him on a slow boat to the Antipodes where he could try his hand at sheep farming. It was an easy decision: it was quite impossible for Stanley to become a lawyer, for he was too decent a human being, and he didn't much care for buggering sheep on the arse-end of the world for eternity, and so he devoted himself to the venerable and sometimes venereal field of medicine. It shan't be too hard, he reasoned, it will be like carpentry, well, except for the wood screaming and bleeding, but what can you do? 

Indeed, what could he do? 

Stanley was adrift in a sea of strange faces and unfamiliar facades, without a friend, bereft of anybody; he had strayed too far from Hadrian's Wall and now found himself in the depths of Caledonia. Fergy was civilized enough, despite all the rumours of necrophilia borne out of his often used dissecting room, and the two of them got on quite well. It was under (or over?) the auspices of a fresh corpse that they made their acquaintance, Fergy with a scalpel in one hand and a ham sandwich in the other, which he politely offered to Stanley who respectfully declined. Fergy was more than happy to have such a fine young man study under him, even if he was English, but, the anatomist admitted, no one was perfect, and thus began a fruitful, if unfulfilled, acquaintance. As always, however, it was the mundane problems that held him down. Stanley had neglected to make arrangements for room and board. Fergy, ever the considerate gentleman, had allowed him to sleep on a cot placed in the dissecting room. Problem was, he had to share the room with his teacher, who would spend the better part of a day contributing to mankind’s knowledge of anatomy, and Stanley’s studies were constantly harassed by the irritating accompaniment of sinewy carving (don’t mind me, lad!). Stanley endured for as long as he possibly could, but after Fergy requested that Stanley empty the chamber pot he kept under the table for his habitual use, Stanley judged the situation to be untenable. Choking on his pride, Stanley wrote up a pitifully-worded plea and sent it off to his father without delay. The response, when it finally arrived, was unsatisfactory. In an uncharacteristically apologetic tone, Stanley the Elder explained that he had lost a good deal of money in the rat pits; Salamanca Sally, that lazy bitch, couldn’t be bothered to chase after the rats despite her previous owner’s assurances, and so Stanley’s father had lost a fair bit of the family savings. Stanley the Elder concluded his letter by warning his dear son of the evils of gambling and how he had once cashiered an ensign for the crime of bringing loaded die to the officer’s mess, and how he later flogged a corporal who was pimping out his own wife to the Spanish peasants, and how...Stanley tore up the letter and swore violently in front of Fergy. 

“Now, now, laddy,” admonished Fergy. “Don’t talk like that. The dead have ears, you know.”

The Scotch were, if anything,  _ canny _ , and that canniness had rubbed off on him. The College of Surgeons greatly benefited from a host of donors—uptight burgher types who felt obliged to pledge their support, and Stanley sought them out, shook their hands, committed faces and names. The stuffed shirts probably thought they were doing him a great service when they invited him to their tables, allowing him to sup with their wives and daughters and sons, to smear his fingerprints all over their silverware and porcelain. They plied him with food and drink, and he dutifully sipped aged port and speared fresh gar (they were less partial to a filling pound of beef in these parts), and hemmed and hawed as the master of the house smacked his lips and made noises. They talked plenty of nonsense, for the most part. A few mentioned the Lord every once in a while, usually in a clumsy attempt to impress a moral lesson upon the young Englishman while embellishing their own souls in the process, and Stanley would nod, keeping mum about his benefactors’ shares in the plantations of the West Indies (This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe, indeed). Stanley’s interest in the conversation would marginally increase when the ladies withdrew to the drawing room at the end of a meal, and the men were left behind to converse more freely—it was here they shed all pretension. For all their pious airs and numbing platitudes, they really were a petty people. Their lives were rife with social jockeying: they competed with one another in purchasing commissions for their sons, but only for posts in prestigious regiments like the Scots Guards or the Black Watch, and they took an obscene pleasure in boasting of their acquaintances with prominent public figures; whenever they did so, they gave knowing looks to Stanley, smiling, as if those absurd names taken from some tawdry catalogue should mean something to him. Stanley would smile and shake his head, and his hosts would laugh—at him, the threadbare outlander who wore the same coat everyday and who was too ashamed to talk of his own family. And he’d sit there and take it, smiling and laughing, hating them all the while. 

Toadying, much like the activity of prostitution, involves getting absolutetly fucked. 

Looking back, Stanley couldn’t really tell when it happened, but something within him changed. No one had ever described him as pleasant, and he was the kind of man who saw flaws in others more often than naught, but it was among those vile, crustaceous-breathed Presbyterians that he learned the meaning of misanthropy. It wasn’t enough to feed on the upper crust; he wanted to devour them, he wanted to slice them open and inflame their insides. 

Their were those who took a markedly different kind of interest in Stephen Stanley, those with  _ taste _ . He had a full head of lank blond hair then, a single golden forelock hanging over his fair face, not yet etched with weariness, his expression resting in calm repose; his bearing was that rare combination of carelessness and composure, a heady mixture that made peoples’ heads turn whenever he took his evening stroll, and he smiled and nodded to the gentlemen and touched his forelock and bowed to the blushing ladies. He did not drink in excess, he never swore openly, and he never failed to attend the Sunday service, always leaving a generous offering in the collection bowl although he was but a struggling student. He was well-behaved, but not innocent; even then there was a severity to his features that only the perceptive picked up on. He met their furtive gazes, inviting them for a swim within his blue irises, and the ladies bit their lips and cocked their heads ever so slightly; some fanned themselves, loose strands of hair fluttering over their eyes, demure under the long ashes. He would permit a trace of a smile, a sly hint of what may be, and the ladies could well imagine what he offered while their husbands and fathers, their caregivers and moral guardians, peddled their usual drivel, so woefully ignorant of what transpired before them. Leah McGovern caressed his feet with her own under the dinner table while her father bemoaned the poor turnout to his birthday reception; Mary Campbell ran a soft hand up and down his thigh under the cover of damask, her spidery fingers playing around the fall-front of his trousers, running a pressing thumb around the buttons, and Stanley smiled and bobbed his head and praised her father’s good business sense. Other ladies played their own games—mere parlour games (a great deal of caresses transpired in that part of the house, actually), and Stanley was not a gaming man. He never left things to chance; what he wanted, he took. 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” complained James Dunn in regards to his daughter. “She stays in bed instead of going to church and talks back to her own dear mother! I don’t know what’s gotten into her, Stan. A girl like her should be pressing flowers in leather-bound books, not running off to your butchery school and watching those ghastly dissections!”

“But, sir,” Stanley murmured, speaking in that low, steady monotone the Scotchmen were so fond of, “ _ I  _ invited her.”

“Only once, but now she goes of her own accord, and to even worse places too...like the waterfront! She brings home dead crabs and fish to her room, and the maid speaks of the most foetid odors issuing from her door. She says she’s interested in ickyology or somesuch. Rubbish! When I told her to throw those things away she shouted at me...at me, Stan!”

Stanley pursed his lips and nodded to himself. “I fear, Mr. Dunn, that your daughter suffers from what we learned men recognize as  _ hysteria _ . Forgive me if I come across as untoward, but it’s quite a scandalous condition, you must understand. Such symptoms as you describe typically manifest before the onset of tribadism, and unless the proper measures are taken right away the condition may prove incurable. You can have a doctor treat it, but everyone will know, and you wouldn’t want those dreadful Argyll’s knowing about it, would you? Mrs. Argyll is such an irascible gossip…”

“Lord in heaven! What am I to do?” 

Stanley’s smile threatened to split his face in two. He lifted his abominably clean hands and tickled the air. “I’m not sure whether I’m really qualified,” Stanley said modestly, “but you’ve been so kind to me...and I’d be remiss in not acknowledging your charity. I can treat your daughter, discreetly.”

Dunn shouted his assent and clapped Stanley on the back, pumping his hand and embracing him, calling him a ‘good lad’—high praise from a Scotchman.

“Please, Mr. Dunn, please.” Stanley pushed him off, but not harshly. “The pleasure is all mine.”

And indeed, it was.

In the span of a few days, Stanley discovered that the entirety of Edinburgh’s female population suffered from hysteria, and, being the good doctor that he was, he graciously offered to solve the problem for free, and in a discreet manner. His benefactors were more than welcoming; the ladies excessively so. Perhaps young Stanley was overzealous in his duties. Perhaps the routine pelvic massage did not need the complement of an insinuating tongue, followed by the curling fingers. Perhaps he shouldn’t have kissed their parted mouths with lips still moist with them, swearing his vacuous love and promising the long death of marriage. Perhaps their were ulterior motives when he insisted they wear their best stockings and press their thighs together while he attended to country matters. And if those actions were inappropriate, then surely he should not have laid beside them when all was done, taking their dainty hands in his and laying them on his lap, whispering into their ears, insistent in that singular moment of intimacy that comes after an invigorating session, encouraging, needling,  _ prying _ —and in the same husky breath that had urged him on they whispered all of their families’ secrets, and unfortunately for them, Stanley had a very faithful memory. That was how he discovered the true nature of a classmate, a fellow dilettante of the flesh, but whereas Stanley preferred to spend his days with his head pressed between a warm silk vice, the Northumbrian’s sensibilities were those of a...Francophile! And it just so happened that Stanley was in dire need of French lessons…

A collection of empty bottles were glowing by candlelight in a rented garrett when Stanley laid a firm hand on the Northumbrian’s knee and asked him if it wouldn’t be nice if they called up a doxy and enjoyed what the frogs called a  _ ménage à trois _ . His ostensible tutor and true friend readily agreed, and they enjoyed themselves immensely. 

And it was by the end of the week they dropped the girl and all pretense between them.

“Mr. Collins, wait here a moment,” Stanley said, the book trembling in his hands, every syllable dribbling down his bloodless lips. He composed them into a twitching smile. "I think I've got something better than laudanum."

There was nothing logical about what He was going to do, nothing rational —he was inviting trouble. Polishing an AB's bedknob? Sure, no problem, how could a low rating like that act against the hand of an officer? What was a tar's word against that of a gentleman's? But Collins and him were on an equal standing—Navy-wise anyway—and anything disagreeable may lead to social embarrassment making the likes of Horace and Ovid out to be child's play. But this taboo, this improper relation, was what made the act so sweet! Illicit affairs are the best affairs, just as a stolen painting held ransom by a thief is lovelier than anything by a master's hand. Succulent meals are often saturated in sin, and Stanley has tasted many. The appeal of going down on all those women wasn’t derived from something so banal as physical pleasure—although there were no shortage of helping hands willing to make up for that deficiency—but the awareness that he may well be caught at any time,  _ in flagrante delicto _ , and that his potential accusers were just outside the door, smoking a pipe or reading a book, so close yet so far from the outrage being committed. His gratification came in the dining room, where he’d watch a daughter or wife fidget in her chair, her thighs pink and raw and speckled with bite marks, while a father or husband or brother prattled on, so blissfully unawares. But the greatest wellspring of sensual release came within the nave of a church where, sitting off to the side and towards the back where he was afforded a favorable view, he’d pick out his patients in the pews, all decked out in their bonnets and Sunday best, hands he’d seen clenching the bed sheets now clasped in pious prayer, and the ladies’ lips silently carrying Chist’s name, and Stanley would smile, recalling the evenings before when they were screaming his name.

And His name was there too, but in a very contrary context.

“Sit beside me, Mr. Collins,” Stanley said, “and I will explain to you the nature of my new treatment.”

Come what may, this experience ought to provide more entertainment than this convoluted tome. 


	2. Chapter 2

Henry Foster Collins's frill of keratinous tentacles wavered uncertainly as he approached. Stanley scooted over and patiently patted his bedside. One hand still held his book. Collins's lumbering form blocked the lamp and a baleful shadow fell over Stanley's prone, sheet-draped body. And on his patient came, ponderous yet inexorable…

Linen strained and grew taught around Stanley, quite literally hemming the doctor in, and timbers creaked as the cot's wooden frame protested against Collins's falling weight. The sudden arrival of this counterbalance had the rude effect of abruptly elevating Stanley's side of the cot and nearly causing his balding crown to hit the overhead. Nevertheless, Stanley maintained his calm demeanor, and not once did his book threaten to fall from his grasp. Collins, sitting beside him, folded his hands in his lap and looked downwards, reminding Stanley of an errant schoolboy brought before the headmaster. But it was not chastisement the good doctor had in store for his patient, quite the opposite in fact. 

“Now look here...Mr. Collins, my good man,” Stanley began haltingly, his voice tampered by a feigned and unfamiliar hospitality, “I’ve mulled over your condition greatly as of late, and after much observation and study I have finally reached a definitive conclusion in regards to the general disorder of your nerves.” Stanley took a deep breath. Christ, this was fucking nonsense, more so than the contents of the book he was reading. He added after a lengthy pause, “An ecstatic ejaculation of  _ Eureka! _ would not be amiss in this moment.”

Collins stamped his feet on the deck and twisted around, his glistening black eyes demanding his attention—seals’ eyes, they were. “Is that so, Dr. Stanley?” he asked with such earnest hopefulness that it made Stanley’s heart ache. “Pray tell!”

“I will, I will, just be quiet, please,” Stanley pleaded. “You don’t want to startle the whole ship do you? Alright, then. I’ll explain, but you must promise me that you’ll be quiet and listen.”

Collins lifted his hands and mimed buttoning and sewing his mouth shut, his thick crimson fingers working across his lips like tumescent worms. He flashed Stanley a conspiratorial smile.

A snippet of Fergy’s voice carried on a mental wind:  _ You’ve done it now, my boy _ .

“You see, Mr. Collins,” Stanley said, his confidence building, “I really should’ve recognized it sooner, but it’s such a rare phenomenon, you must understand, that I was regretfully tardy in recognizing it for what it was: _masculum_ _hysteriae_, or in layman’s terms, male hysteria.”

Stanley saw that Collins wished to speak rather badly, but a stern frown convinced his hysterical patient to stay his tongue.

“Imbalance of the bodily humours, sensory derangement relating to your perceptive organs and irregularities in nervous function are all factors in what’s ailing you, but your primary source of despair stems from your  _ testes _ .”

“Well, if I am to speak candidly, sir, I would never consider myself to be as testy as you.”

“Silence, Mr. Collins. It’s impolite to interrupt.” Stanley trained his eyes on those deep wells of his patient's face, so opaque and full of need. Audacity, the Northumbrian had once told him, was a gold word with scarlet brocade; it was a proud banner, an  _ oriflamme  _ if you will, and once taken up it could never be put down again until the struggle was over, everyone else be damned. “The primary cause of your distress is an overabundance of seminal fluid in your testicals.” Stanley paused, silently assessing Collins’s reaction, but there was none. The poor man was actually taking this seriously! Emboldened, Stanley continued, "A helpful analogy would be those of our water tanks here on  _ Erebus _ . Their express purpose is to store water, so that it may be used to aid the operations of our steam engine and to warm the deck beneath our feet through its circulation and heating inside our ingenious system of lead piping. However," —and Stanley strongly emphasized this word—"if the water is not used periodically, it builds up, and if too much accumulates within the tank, interior pressure expands outwards, so that the metal bends and distorts and the seals threaten to crack. That’s happening to your body right now. When was the last time you relieved...um...pressure of your, ah, dual tanks?”

Collins’s response was surprisingly ready and forthcoming. “Never, Dr. Stanley. Never. Self-abuse harms the human body, everyone knows that, sir. Boxing the jesuit can make a man go blind.” Collins frowned. “Weren’t you already aware of this?”

“Oh, why, of course,” Stanley said. “As you said, everyone knows that. I was just testing your medical knowledge, Mr. Collins. Would you trust yourself to perform an amputation unto yourself?”

“Goodness gracious, no! I wouldn’t dare.”

“Exactly. The same can be said of treatment for _musculum_ _hysteriae_. Mr. Collins,” Stanley said, honing his voice to a stern edge, “you must allow me to relieve your pressure for you.”

Collins’s eyes narrowed to beads — button-eyes fit for a doll. If Stanley ever made it out of this he’d have to buy his daughter a nice porcelain one with his Discovery Service pay, but then again, she was probably too old for those now. Years had passed, after all, and there was no telling if she’d even recognize her stepfather. Stanley flinched and pushed her memory away. 

Collins, perhaps thinking the cause of the doctor’s discomfort was his fault, hurriedly said, “I’m certainly not averse to treatment, but don’t you think what you are suggesting is a bit...inappropriate? There’re ship’s articles, and all that.”

“I’m aware of those,” Stanley snapped. “Our dear Crozier’s scripture, I know. But does it  _ explicitly _ list my treatment as a crime?”

“Well, no,” Collins said nervously. 

“And don’t tell me you’ve never broken a rule?”

“No one’s perfect,” Collins admitted. “But you see, if you’ll forgive me for my presumption, we are both men of standing, you and I. What happens in the forecastle stays in the forecastle, as the old saying goes, but we frequent better parts of the ship. I wouldn’t want to insult your person by having you...you know…”

Stanley rolled his eyes and sighed, two expressions that didn’t require acting. “Mr. Collins,” Stanley said, “you are truly an ignorant man. What I have on offer is one of the most wholesome and beneficial exchanges that can take place between two men.”

“To...to toss off, you mean.”

“As you vulgarly put it, yes,” Stanley said. “It’s been practiced for  millennia , and is indeed a cornerstone of Western civilization.”

“Is that so?”

“Quite so. I learned all about such things in the College of Surgeons. For instance, did you know that numerous verses of the  _ Iliad _ are devoted to Patroclus and Achilles taking each other well in hand, and thus providing one another comfort and fueling their respective  _ arete _ ?”

Collins shook his head. “Such passages were not in the copy I read.”

“Of course not. The translation onboard the  _ Erebus’s _ library was severely edited by Sir John himself who took offense to such things. He excised what he thought to be lewd passages because he didn’t understand their value. But believe me, you’ll find the passages I mentioned in the original Greek verse.”

“Interesting. I’ll have to mention this to Mr. Bridgens.”

“No!” Stanley shot up straight and nearly hit his head again. He caught himself and settled back down. “I mean, there's really no need for that. Bridgens is not as intelligent as he thinks. He’s actually rather pretentious, really. He was a cabin boy, whereas I was a school boy. Why, Bridgens can’t tell the difference between Horace and Ovid, and he was wrong about me misattributing a Horatian verse to the other. That’s not true at all, and Mr. Vesconte definitely was not laughing at me! He was not!”

“Oh, well, I didn’t know about all that, but alright. I won’t mention it.”

“Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, tossing off. The Greeks did that alot, and probably still do. Socrates, it is known, would take his students well in hand whenever they said something particularly insightful during his eponymous dialogues as a reward, and Plato was the beneficiary of many a frigging. His  _ Symposium  _ is really an eloquent treatise about the benefits of frigging, and how desperately Alcibiades wanted to return the favor to Socrates. The Greeks, for all intents and purposes, invented frigging."

Collins shook his head in wonderment. "They never taught me this in Greenwich." 

"I would not have expected them to. Although  _ frigging _ (such a vulgar word for such an enlightened ideal) has a time-honored place in the annals of Royal Navy history. The greatest episode of which happened near the beginning of this century. For it was within the gore-drenched cockpit of  _ Victory  _ that Lord Horatio Nelson, champion of Trafalgar, beseeched his trusted flag captain and beloved friend with his dying breath,  _ Yank me, Hardy _ , and expired on the peak of his glory. And his bosom companion, his brother in arms, would have fulfilled his ultimate wish if the life had not already drained from him and been absorbed by the stalwart oak of his flagship.” 

“One learns queer things in medical school,” Collins said.

“But there’s nothing suspect about it, Mr. Collins. Two men may take each other well in hand and it is a happy occurrence that is most pleasing in the eyes of the Lord.”

“Which one are you talking about? Nelson or Christ?”

“Both. For the two of them are tossing off together in Heaven for all eternity,” Stanley said. “Subject yourself to my ministrations, Mr. Collins, and you’ll be taking part in an ancient tradition of fraternal brotherhood that has been observed by the likes of Nelson, Napoleon, Alexander, Caesar, and is currently being mutually and fervently observed by every MP in Parliament.”

“If that’s the case,” Collins said, sounding a great deal more confident, “then I enthusiastically grant my consent.”

“Fantastic,” Stanley said, feeling worn out even though he was yet to begin his efforts proper, but his inextinguishable curiosity drove him on. “Now, drop your britches, if you please.” 

Collins stood up, facing him squarely, and without further ado, did exactly as he was told.

Stephen Stanley’s book fell to the linen along with his jaw. Right up until this moment, he had always fancied himself to be utterly desensitized to the freak occurrences of an indifferent life (tentative title for his upcoming memoirs, perhaps?). Nothing could be more wanton and outrageous than the escapades of his youth; nothing could possibly come close to exceeding the horrifying displays of human destruction he had witnessed onboard  _ Cornwallis _ — a veritable orgy of pestilence and mutilation belowdecks, that was, Stanley picking his way through the wounded with his shirtsleeves rolled up, a dull bonesaw in a bloodstained hand... But nothing, nothing at all, could have forewarned him of what he was now faced with. And nor could any physical peculiarity inure him against this grossly indecent example hanging before his disbelieving eyes. A visceral reaction overwhelmed him, the same kind that coursed through his veins when he first heard the waves of crackling musketry outside of  _ Cornwallis’s _ hull—Ching Kiang’s walls wreathed in acrid powder smoke under a blistering sun, Fitzjames crossing the Rubicon, the warm corpse of a lobsterback lying in his wake, brains dashed out on foreign soil...It was the classic flight or fight response, and right now, in the safety of his own cabin onboard his own ship, every part of him was screaming RUN. But cutting a hasty retreat was impossible, nor was screaming, for his very lungs seemed to contract at the mere sight of it. 

“What the hell, Henry,” Stanley gasped. “My God, what is that thing?”

“It is a stigma I must bear.” Collins sighed. “You’re like all the others.” 

Collins's visible sadness struck a chord within Stanley's stony heart. Trying to make light of the situation, he said, "It's like a narrow fellow in the grass."

Collins shook his head gravely. "I ain't narrow."

"That you are most definitely not," Stanley agreed. 

Christ, the second master really was big all over. He had read of Shelley's Frankenstein, the so-called modern Prometheus, but that fictional doctor was no antecedent of the all too real Priapus that he now beheld, living and breathing and close enough to touch. Collins's hair ran amok down here, he saw quite clearly, especially on the flanks of his pale thighs, so that he was like a bipedal satyr. Indeed, he very much exuded heathen airs; what, with the fecundity of his flesh, hair sprouting above and below in equal measures, and all that with his oversized cock. In the Surgeons’ Hall Museum there was once a collection of South Seas artifacts put on display. They had been picked up by various merchantmen over the years, and were turned over to the owner of the ships—one of those Edinburgh merchants he associated with and whose wife he was  _ well  _ acquainted with—who decorated his study with the false idols. The Scotchman lined them up and sat them down on his shelves like so many rows of dolls. The honored matron’s chest (which was quite generous if Stanley had to say so himself) was filled with righteous indignation and she threatened to toss all those wretched things in a sack and empty them into the gutter if her husband didn’t find a new home for them within the week. After much hand-wringing and arm-waving, pleas and promises, the shipowner reluctantly handed his collection over to Stanley, who in turn handed them over to Surgeons’ Hall. Although he often disagreed with others for the sake of it, he could understand why the lady felt so scandalized. These items were what learned men called  _ fetishes _ —handmade effigies with bodies and limbs crafted from palm wood, wearing little gowns and dresses made from strips of bark, their shell-encrusted eyes staring at him, and their wooden pricks jutting under his nose whenever he held one up for inspection. Fertility charms, if he had to guess. Carry this hard fellow around and you’ll never fail to rise to the occasion, and if you place it under your wife’s pillow, she’ll give you twins. He had seen Grecian and Latin artifacts of similar appearance and purpose, and he wondered why was it that these different cultures, separated by time and space, nevertheless had the good old phallus on the mind. There was a valuable lesson to be learned here, something profound, he felt it dawning on him, but—

“Um, Dr. Stanley?” Collins asked. “Are you alright? You looked like you were going to swoon.”

Stanley jerked upright and shucked the daze off of him. Had he actually been mesmerized by Collins’s cock? Impossible! But what else had happened? Never before had he ever entered such an oblivious state of mind; it aroused his curiosity...and other things too. He hadn’t felt this sensation since he was a young rakehell in Edinburgh, and even then, there was no precedent. This was new, this was special. Stanley’s eyes dilated, his pupils as dark and remote as those shell-rimmed ones from long ago, and his tongue worked on its own accord. 

“Lay down beside me, Mr. Collins.”

The second awkwardly hobbled over with his flannel trousers around his ankles, and for a moment Stanley worried he would fall and crash through the deck, but he bumped against his cot and flopped over beside him. 

“I’m ready when you are, doctor.”

With those words, Stanley realized for the first time what a monumental task rose before him. It was not that he didn't know his way around a pole, the Northumbrian could attest to that, but he had never handled anything of this magnitude. He could slap Collins's bollocks and his prick would probably sing the Angelus; and those above-deck would go down the hatches, thinking their watch has ended. God Almighty, he could scarcely look at it without shaking, his hands folding and unfolding. Best to go about this not as a man, but as the doctor he surely was. But first he had to hide his face; he couldn't let Collins know of his own vulnerability. He nonchalantly picked up the book and opened it to a random page. 

Collins stirred beside him. "But what about my—?"

A cool palm wrapped around his personal Excalibur with such confidence and alacrity that it elicited a sharp yelp that was shushed by Stanley who, with his other hand, still held the book open. The doctor wasn't even giving his patient the courtesy of a sideways glance. 

"Um, alright then."

Stanley was seemingly engrossed in his book, eyes half-closed, anemic lips forming silent words, but like most of his appearances, this one had all the substance of a paper mask. The good doctor was bordering on hysteria himself. Here he was jammed between a thin bulkhead and a huge man with enough hair to knit his own Guernsey frock (a Collins frock?), an absurd book in one hand and a slightly more absurd cock in the other. Anyone walking in on them would sooner die of laughing than of shock. He was like a boorish guest who, after piling his plate at a fine society banquet, realizes he has served himself too many helpings! Indeed, he very much had a hard road ahead of him. Collins's erection was a burgeoning thing, not yet at full length, and there was no telling how high it would be when he was anywhere close to finishing. Stanley had plunged into this venture the same way Napoleon had done so with Russia—thinking it to prove a short and decisive affair. A man gets more sensitive to stimuli the longer he has been out of touch, and Stanley expected him to come rather quickly, but in matters of endurance Collins too was remarkable. Stanley wondered in between strokes and sentences whether or not Collins had any amorous liaisons before departure in Greenhithe, and if so, how any woman...or man...could have survived him. 

Collins, ever the conversationalist, endeavored to enlighten Doctor Stanley through the virtue of his own words:

"I'm really sorry to have come unto you like this on such short notice, but I've had seldom few opportunities to see to my body's...needs. My size has rendered me as celibate as a Jesuit, and without the observance of any boxing, I assure you. Real ironic, eh?" Collins was about ready to laugh, but a firm squeeze and a run of a thumb effectively stifled him. "Hmm...yes," he resumed after catching his breath, undeterred, "not too many sweethearts were willing to take my dunnage aboard, no matter how much they liked me…"—his voice took on a poignant, melancholy note—"There was a girl, there always is one, isn't there? But not like this one. We knew each other since we were kids, yeah? And I wrote to no one else but her when I was at sea. That's how close we were. Bethany. Sweet Beth, I called her. Her father and my father were shipmates on the  _ Unite _ . They took the  _ Dromadaire _ together in ‘11, and they fought side by side in Sagone Bay. It was a friendship forged with cutlasses and round shot, my father told me, and they always looked after one another, before and after the war, on and offshore. Beth and I were destined to be married —we had both our parents’ blessings, and we got along famously. It was in those precious few moments I had with her before shipping out that I would swing her up and have her sit on my shoulders while I paraded up and down the street, not caring what was said by passerby.” Collins smiled sadly. “I’ve seen that ring on your finger. What was your courtship like?”

Stanley grimaced. There was none. The wedding itself was a hastily observed affair conducted in his mother-in-law’s garden. It had rained shortly before. Lilies drooped, petals pregnant with glistening droplets. He stared over his wife’s head at an ivy-choked trellis; the wet growth weaving in and out of the latticework, dark and swollen with perspiration, the greenery wrapping around interlacing ribs with a quiet intimacy. The droning voice of the valet turned minister coating the scene in a still gloss. The girl, he thought, you’re doing this for the girl, no, your daughter.

“I can’t say I remember,” Stanley said. 

“That’s too bad,” Collins said, “but I must admit, I would’ve preferred to have forgotten mine as well. She and her people were living in London the fateful day I meant to propose to her. I was going to do it during the day, but the damned coach ran late and it was dark when I showed up at her doorstep. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I caught her alone, you see. Her father was out of town on business, and her mother was visiting relatives in the country. No one was in my way. Nothing could ruin my happiness. I took her up to the library without a word, and while she was still making a fuss I dropped to one knee and flashed her the ring—the same one my grandfather gave to my grandma, polished to a sheen so that she thought it was new, and I saw no need to dissuade her! She said yes and wrapped her arms around me in the same breath—or tried to, for I was by far the wider. Since there was no doubt in our minds as to whether our parents would give their blessings or not—what, with them being such good friends—we decided it wouldn't be inappropriate to have ourselves a premarital appetizer, a taste of the conjugal feast to come."

Stanley had gone from wanting to ask if his patient was almost finished to, in spite of himself, becoming interested in his dilemma. "Go on," he urged, somewhat aroused himself. "Spare no detail, no matter how trivial it may seem."

"We raced to the bedroom."

"Yeeesss?" 

"She was smaller, yet far more randier than I. She jumped out of her evening dress and was sprawled over the bed in her shift and stockings before you could say, England expects that every man will do his duty."

"What color were her stockings?" Stanley demanded. "What were they like? This is critical information vital to your well-being, Mr. Collins."

"They weren't that nice to tell you the truth. Crimson stockings. Faded, with holes around the thighs. The color and texture of rust. It was like her legs were coated in dried blood. But they complemented her hair, her freckles."

Stanley felt something stirring beneath the covers. Oh, how he loved stockings! He always made his hysterical patients, and later his wife on the rare occasion she consented to a tumble, keep them on. The older and smellier the better; being similar to, but far more piquant, than any aged wine. No sadder sentence in the English language had been written than, "A new pair of stockings, never worn." They appealed to his finer sensibilities. Much like how he always insisted on the Northumbrian wearing a tasseled nightcap and a pair of tinted spectacles during their nocturnal jaunts. 

"Proceed."

"This time I was down on both my knees before you could say, Thank God I have done my duty. In the sanctity of her boudoir I played the Napoleon to her Josephine. She was immensely gratified by my performance. She told me after the act that I had fulfilled her lifelong fantasy of having a bear's muzzle writhing between her legs."

"And? That can't be all."

Collins sighed. "I'm sorry, sir, but you're in for what playwrights call an anti-climax. Now it was my turn to fulfill my dreams, and without further ado I revealed myself—to disaster! No sooner had I pulled my trousers down than she was swooning back onto the bed, her lax face arched and drawn, the back of her hand against her pale forehead, her throat trembling, like so"—Collins imitated his dear Beth with an astonishing vigor that made Stanley briefly lose his grip; Collins's body went slack and his ruddy face drew an expression of a fainting maiden, head tilted slightly back with his eyes half-closed—"I revived Beth by dousing her with a bowl of tepid bathwater. Her eyes fluttered, then widened with horror. She adamantly refused me as soon she caught her breath, saying I was too big and would surely split her in two if I tried. She was still willing to take my hand in marriage, but I'd have to be content with what I just did to her and try nothing more than that." Collins eyes darted to and fro at unseen shapes, his tone was slow, deep, guilty. "I'm afraid I did not acquit myself as a gentleman that night. I told her, quite savagely, that if the marriage could not be consummated then there was no point, and that we may as well keep being the friends we were before. Tearfully, she begged me to reconsider, but I, I daresay I shouted, that I wanted to be her husband, not a Carmelite muff-diver. If I couldn't exercise my natural rights as a husband, and if she wouldn't give me a Henry Foster Collins Junior to put in the service, then there was nothing left but for me to call the marriage off and spend another few years at sea. She understood that readily enough, and, fortunately, she didn't throw a fit. But being in such a passion I made the mistake of asking for my ring back."

"Tsk-tsk, Mr. Collins. A novice mistake," said Stanley, who had avoided such falls by never giving anyone more than two pence, and certainly never anything belonging to his family. 

"She said no, that it was too late. It was on her finger. And she waved it at me, mocking me, and I...I was not a gentleman," Collins mumbled his admission of guilt. "I grabbed her wrist and tore the ring off of her. It came off easily, thank goodness, but if it didn't…I would have taken my boat knife and cut the finger off, taking it with me. I know it's no excuse, but it was a  _ valuable _ ring, doctor."

Stanley remembered his father talking about the looting that went on after battle in the Peninsula. Women and children would go out while the smoke still drifted over the field and snatch things off the fallen. It wasn't like they needed their worldly accoutrements anymore. Sometimes a wounded man would protest too much, and struggle against the prying hands, but there was never a situation a knife couldn't fix. Stanley's father told those stories by the fireplace late into the night, the warm coals highlighting a curiously remote expression on his face. Come morning, he'd find him still sitting by the smoldering hearth. 

"She leaped upon me," Collins continued, unaware, "trying to claw my eyes out—please resist that Cyclops joke, I see your thoughts—so you must agree that I had no other choice but to pick her up and bodily throw her back against the bed. It was a soft landing, I gave Beth that at least, but I knocked the bloody air out of her. The ring firmly in my fist, I left the room, reeling from shame and rage and the stinging cuts all around my brown. I steadied myself against the door frame and, feeling as salty as I was, hazarded a glance back. I didn't meet her accusing eyes, as I had feared, or a broadside of abuse, but rather, it was her bare...stern...I laid my watery eyes upon. I had tossed her off in such a fashion that the hem of her shift rode over her hips and her face became buried in the covers—her chasers canted upwards so that they were aimed directly at my face, accusatory-like. In many ways she resembled the face of a frightened barn owl in that position, and this odd visage served as my parting image of her, for I never saw her again." He crossed his arms, painfully jabbing an elbow into Stanley's side in the process, and shivered, further irritating the doctor. "That image haunts me still."

"Don't worry, Mr. Collins. That's the best way to see any lady off, in my opinion," Stanley said. "Or anyone, for that matter."

"But she wasn't the only one I saw off that fateful night." Collins was staring at an empty space between the bulkhead and overhead and, much to Stanley's dismay, he was going soft in his grasp. "There were others—men, an old one and a young one, whom my encounters with resulted in even greater disasters."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a much longer chapter, but since it wasn't getting done anytime soon I decided to share as is. For the longest time I was on a roll, writing a little bit everyday, making notes of amusing sentences and vocabulary, but lately I fell out of the practice. I'm hoping to get back in step soon now that some things have wrapped up. It occured to me while writing this chapter that Collins does not actually have a beard, and that I must've been thinking of Little (I still can't tell some of these people apart!). Well, in this fic Collins has a beard. All the info about Collins's Dad comes from O'Byrne's Naval Dictionary and has been reproduced as faithfully as possible. The remark about Greenwich is a reference to the Greenwich Hospital School. If you want to read more stories with thick male protagonists, I recommend Red Harvest (Hammett's best, in my opinion. Excellent use of first person narration) and The Good Soldier Svejk (the eponymous protagonist isn't explicitly described as thick in the text but he appears so in the illustrations. I really adore this one). My recommendations and opinions are the best and definitely worth listening to, considering my standing as a Hugo Award winner - and thus I share one thing in common with the greatest smut writer of them all...Dan Simmons. Subsequent sections will include Collins' London rampage (Ratting pit and Hyde Park), the Edinburgh Phrenological Society and the Northumbrian, Shandy, and a couple of unwelcome interruptions.

**Author's Note:**

> My original plan was to finish everything I have in progress and then run off to devote myself to original work. But the Terror keeps calling me back like a bad habit. And anyway I'm running 100% impulse so I can't promise anything at all. I have two works in progress - one Terror related, one original. This semester is a lot more hectic than the last one, so I've been busy, and when I'm not busy I'm lazy, so I really don't know when any of this will be done. Fergy was actually a real person who reportedly spent a lot of time in the dissection room, and a young Stanley may indeed have trained under him. The style of Morfin's monologue was based in part on the early autobiography, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truths in a Homespun Dress, by Timothy Dexter, who was quite the character in his own right. This fic was not meant to be told in two chapters, but I found that it was going on for too long, and so I had to leave things out but will probably put them in in the next chapter. The book Stanley is reading is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, which is supposed to be about the title character telling his life story, but he keeps digressing and talking about other people so that it's really a book about other people. This will be elaborated on later. Other things meant to be more explicit in this chapter is the relationship between Stanley and the Northumbrian, Stanley wreaking more havoc in Edinburgh, Stanley's father pledging his son's best clothes to a pawnbroker, Fergy's questionable hygiene and dining practices, Collins and the woes of his abnormally large hardware, surprise appearances by Vesconte and Bridgens, and much more! This all might show up in the next chapter.
> 
> Stephen Stanley:  
https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2018/04/stephen-samuel-stanley.html
> 
> Kalaallit:  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaallit
> 
> A Pickle for the Knowing Ones:  
http://www.lordtimothydexter.com/the_holl_pickle.htm
> 
> Tristram Shandy:  
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1079/1079-h/1079-h.htm


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